“…Urban politics have, says Imbroscio, witnessed an 'explosion' of studies, comparative or otherwise, using urban regime theory to analyse the dynamics of inter-organisational governance (Imbroscio, 1998: 233/4). This is true not only in the USA, where 'America's major urban journals are now filled with references to regimes' (Harding, 2000: 54), but also in many other parts of the developed world from New Zealand (Brown, 1999) to Europe (see Levine, 1994;Strom, 1996;Kantor et al, 1997). In Britain too, scholars have debated whether it can be adapted to explain the spread of urban regeneration partnerships during the 1990s (see Lawless, 1994;Stoker and Mossberger, 1994;Harding, 2000;Davies 2001).…”